Rainbow Six Siege Outbreak Update Reveals a New Alien Enemy

The Ubisoft US Youtube channel has released a trailer for the upcoming "Outbreak" event set to take place on March 6th for Rainbow Six Siege to start off the new Year 3 updates. The trailer teases that the new three-player co-op mode to be released in March will feature alien life.

We also got an update from the official Rainbow Six Siege website about the free new game mode. In the Outbreak event, a capsule landed on Earth containing parasitic creatures called "The Apex" that infect human beings, mutating them into horrific monsters. Humans place them in quarantine along with anyone else that happens to be in the general area.

We can expect five different enemy types, "from exploding monstrosities to hulking horrors" with their own individual abilities. The new game mode will also "push the destruction engine to new heights," as enemies will "tear through walls to get through to you."

Players will have two difficulty settings available to them, the "normal" setting and the "pandemic" setting, where enemies can take you down in a few hits, and friendly fire is enabled. Players can play the mode on three new maps that are more open and vast than any of the other PVP-focused maps. There will even be sections of the map that take place completely outside.

Due to the nature of the game mode, only certain operatives can be played on the map:

The two new Operation Chimera Operators from the upcoming Year 3 DLC

Smoke

Ying

Buck

Kapkan

Ash

Doc

Tachanka

Glaz

Standard Recruit

If you look carefully, at 0:49 you can also see a possible new tag of an alien badge for your weapons. At the end of the trailer, we get a quick look at the new gear, only available during the four-week event from March 6th to April 3rd. The gear can only be obtained through Outbreak packs, the new loot box-style packs that come from either in-game feats or microtransactions and that range from 50 Rare to legendary cosmetic equipment, such as gun skins, head gear, and a new elite skin that we saw at the end of the trailer.

This is pretty unexpected, as the game has always been so PVP focused, and while not totally realistic, it has usually been grounded in reality at the very least. The full reveal of the event will take place during the Six Invitational event on February 13th.